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LIBRARY 

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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


THE 


DACOTAH   TRIBES, 


THEIR  BELIEFS,  AND  OUR  DOTY  TO  THEM  OUTLINED, 


BY 

HENRY   B.   CARRINGTON, 
COLONEL  U.  S.  A. 


SALEM,   MASS: 

PRINTED  AT  THE  SALEM  PRESS. 

1881. 


THE 


DACOTAH   TRIBES, 


THEIR  BELIEFS,  AND  OUR  DUT;Y  TO  THEM  OUTLINED, 


HENRY  BTCARRINGTON,  ,   I  ? 
COLONEL  U.  S.  A. 


SALEM,   MASS: 

PRINTED  AT  THE  SALEM  PRESS. 

1881. 


5   ^"7 

...OFT 
LIBRARY 


[From  the  PROCEEDINGS  OF  THE  AMERICAN  ASSOCIATION  FOR  THE  ADVANCEMENT 
OF  SCIENCE,  Vol.  XXIX,  Boston  Meeting,  August,  1£80.] 


THE  DACOTAH  TRIBES  :   THEIR  BELIEFS,  AND  OUR  DUTY  TO  THEM 
OUTLINED.      By  HENRY  B.  CARRINGTON,   Colonel  U.  S.   A. 

THE  pulse  of  our  quick  life  will  brook  no  check.  In  the  rage 
for  gold,  the  white  man  has  held  for  nought  the  red  man's  rights. 
How  to  get  all  he  has  and  then  get  rid  of  him,  at  the  first  chance, 
and  be  glad  when  he  is  gone,  is  the  sum  which  we  count  up,  as 
fast  as  we  can,  to  kill  his  race. 

I  wish  to  tell  some  things  which  will  give  him  grace  at  your 
hands.  I  do  not  tell  where  he  came  from,  but  as  he  is  a  man,  he 
has  value,  and  if  the  brain  force  which  is  here  can  plan  good  for 
the  live  red  man  and  let  him  live,  it  will  be  worth  as  much  as  to 
read  what  stones  and  coals  say  of  the  dead  past.  I  will  not  try  to 
work  out  the  fact  as  to  how  he  came  to  be.  You  who  strive  to  get 
at  the  first  start  of  each  old  race  can  do  that.  He  is  here,  and  I 
speak  for  him. 

I  felt  a  strange  thrill  of  zeal  for  him  when  Irwakura,  the  chief 
of  the  Japan  Legation  which  visited  this  country,  stated,  that  uhe 
asked  that  his  train  might  stop  at  Echo  Canon,  so  that  he  might 
look  upon  the  first  red  man  he  ever  met."  I  give  what  he  said,  for 
your  thought.  It  was  this  :  "We  have  a  tradition  in  our  country, 
that  our  people  came  from  the  skies  in  a  boat,  and  we  have  pic 
tures  which  represent  our  ancestors.  I  know  enough,  now,  to 
see  that  people  cannot  come  out  of  the  sky  ;  but  when  I  see  those, 
who  for  the  first  time  remind  me  of  the  pictures  of  our  forefathers, 
I  wonder,  with  awe,  whether  America  was  not  their  home  and  the 
ocean  waves  took  them  to  Japan."  It  was  a  new  thought  to  me, 
and  I  pass  it  to  you  who  are  adepts  in  this  branch  of  study,  for 
further  solution. 

I  speak  for  the  red  men  of  Dacotah,  but  include  all  who  were 
associated  with  my  service  on  the  Plains,  principally  the  Paw 
nees,  Winnebagoes,  Northern  Cheyennes,  Arapahoes,  Ogallalla  and 
Brule  Sioux  and  the  Crows.  I  do  not  say  that  like  thought  stirs 
the  brain  of  all  these  bands  ;  but  in  none  have  I  found  words  which 

(3) 


4  THE    DACOTAH   TRIBES  J 

curse  God.  White  Horse,  an  old  Cheyenne  chief,  was  aroused 
when  he  heard  white  men  curse,  and  said,  "  it  was  not  so  bad  for 
a  boy  to  curse  his  father  and  mother,  as  for  a  man  to  curse  the 
Great  Spirit,  who  gave  him  air,  earth,  water  and  all  good  things." 
One,  thus  stated  his  idea,  pointing  to  a  child  :  "  Pappoose  wiskeat 
auteas  ?  Pappoose  wiskeat  autrara  ?"  (Pappoose  curse  father  and 
mother)."  "  The  child  would  have  had  no  father  and  mother,  and 
the  father  and  mother  would  have  had  no  child,  but  for  the  Great 
Spirit.  Why  do  the  white  men  curse  ? "  The  red  man  takes  up 
our  strong  words  to  express  anger  ;  but  his  reverence  for  the  Great 
Spirit  is  above  that  of  some  white  men  who  claim  to  be  his  master. 
Their  views  as  to  life  after  death  are  no  less  striking.  When 
the  dead  were  rescued  from  the  battle-field  after  Fetterman's  mas- 
sabre  in  1866,  when  three  officers  and  seventy-eight  men  were 
killed  and  cut  up  in  thirty  minutes,  I  found  that  nearly  every  body 
was  stripped  of  the  muscles  of  the  arm,  breast,  back,  thigh  and 
calves  of  the  legs.  The  bodies  were  filled  with  arrows,  one  hun 
dred  and  sixty-eight  having  been  found  in  three  bodies.  I  quote 
from  the  Official  Report  as  to  these  mutilations.  "  Eyes  torn  out 
and  laid  on  the  rocks  ;  teeth  chopped  out ;  joints  of  fingers  cut  off; 
brains  taken  out  and  placed  on  rocks,  with  members  of  the  body  ; 
entrails  taken  out  and  exposed  ;  hands  and  feet  cut  off;  arms  taken 
out  from  socket ;  eyes,  ears,  mouth  and  arms  penetrated  with 
spearheads,  sticks  and  arrows ;  punctures  upon  every  sensitive 
part  of  the  body,  even  to  the  soles  of  the  feet  and  the  palms  of  the 
hands."  I  asked  a  member  of  the  Red  Cloud  band,  why  this  was 
done  ;  and  the  key  to  these  mutilations  was  startling  and  impressive. 
Their  idea  of  the  spirit  land  is,  that  it  is  a  physical  paradise,  but 
we  enter  upon  its  mysteries  just  in  the  condition  we  hold  when  we 
die.  In  the  Indian  paradise  every  physical  taste  or  longing  is 
promptly  met.  If  he  wants  food  it  is  at  hand.  Water  springs  up 
for  ready  use.  Ponies  and  game  abound.  Blossoms,  leaves  and 
fruit  never  fail.  All  is  perennial  and  perpetual.  But  what  is  the 
Indian  hell  ?  It  is  the  same  in  place  and  in  profusion  of  mercies  ; 
but  the  bad  cannot  partake.  Like  Dives  who  saw,  craved  and 
panted  for  relief,  he  cannot  enjoy.  In  the  light  of  this  idea,  these 
tortured  bodies  had  a  new  significance.  With  the  muscles  of  the 
arms  cut  out,  the  victim  could  not  pull  a  bow-string  or  trigger ; 
with  other  muscles  gone  he  could  not  ride  in  the  stirrup  or  stoop 
to  drink ;  so  that  while  every  sense  was  in  agon}'  for  relief  from 


BY   HENRY   B.    CARRINGTON.  5 

hunger  or  thirst,  there  could  be  no  relief  at  all.  The  red  man  does 
not  have  the  moral  sense  which  would  argue  that  every  vice  is 
crippling  the  moral  and  mental  muscles,  so  that  every  fault  leaves 
man  less  perfect  for  beginning  a  grand  career  beyond  the  grave  ; 
but  the,  germ  thought  is  in  his  mind,  and  the  white  man  can  give 
it  better  force  and  activity  if  he  will  care  half  as  well  for  the  red 
man  as  he  does  for  Hottentots,  Asiatics  and  strangers  of  the  South 
Pacific  Isles.  Before  Chief  Joseph  of  the  Nez  Perces  fled  from 
his  rightful  home,  in  1877,  to  fight  for  his  very  life,  he  was  asked 
if  he  wanted  schools  on  the  Wallowa  reservation,  he  said  "  No ! " 
When  asked  his  reason,  he  replied  that  "it  would  bring  churches." 
"  Don't  you  want  churches?"  was  the  next  inquiry.  "No,  no,"  he 
answered,  "  it  will  teach  us  to  quarrel  about  God,  as  the  Catholics 
and  Protestants  do.  We  fight  each  other,  but  we  don't  want  to 
learn  to  fight  about  God."  When  asked  to  sell  his  reservation,  he 
sharply  replied  :  uDo  you  believe  that  we  came  out  of  the  bosom 
of  the  Earth?  I  know  you  do.  Then  the  earth  is  our  mother. 
Would  you  sell  your  mother  ?  I  never  will  sell  my  mother." 

Their  mode  of  burial  by  raising  the  dead  upon  platforms,  above 
the  reach  of  wild  beasts,  until  the  dust  returns  to  mother  earth,  is 
full  of  strange  fancies.  Their  dread  of  being  hanged  is  due  to 
their  fear  that  as  the  spirit  leaves  the  body  while  the  feet  are  above 
the  earth,  it  will  be  doomed  to  the  loss  of  all  capacity  for  walking 
and  running  hereafter,  the  most  horrible  of  fates  for  the  red  man 
whose  hope  and  joy  are  in  physical  bliss  alone. 

One  more  phase  of  the  red  man's  life  is  pertinent  to  this  inquiry. 
"What  shall  we  do  with  and  for  him?"  It  seems  to  me  that  here 
is  just  the  place  to  speak  a  word  for  him,  because  the  work  of  sci 
ence  is  to  bless  man  ;  and  we  do  not  push  inquiry  so  far  back  into 
the  silent  past  and  into  the  cold  forms  of  the  once  igneous  trap 
and  granite,  and  reconstruct  old  life  from  impress  and  fragment, 
that  we  ignore  the  living  present.  It  is  better  to  preserve  a  race 
with  which  our  fathers  did  compete  for  this  fair  continent,  than  to 
e'xplain  how  the  red  man  came  here,  and  what  was  his  pedigree 
direct  from  Adam,  or  some  anterior  protoplasm.  We  call  him  a 
savage,  but  he  can  be  a  friend.  The  Narragansetts  and  Dela- 
wares  were  true  to  the  white  man.  The  Pawnees,  Winnebagoes 
and  Crows  have  been  true  to  the  white  man.  Spotted  Tail,  with 
his  ten  thousand  companions,  is  true,  and  he  has  not  failed  to 
meet  pledges  made  in  1866.  Red  Cloud  and  his  eleven  thousand 


6  THE   DACOTAH   TRIBES  J 

followers  are  true,  in  spite  of  repeated  change  of  his  reservation, 
and  untold  deprivations  which  the  tide  of  western  growth  has 
brought.  I  say,  plainly,  that  the  red  man  when  he  enters  into  a 
fair  contract,  understandingly,  is  as  faithful  to  obligation  as  the 
average  white  man,  and  that  from  1865  until  the  present  time, 
there  has  not  been  a  border  campaign  which  did  not  have  its  im 
pulse  in  the  aggressions  of  the  white  man.  When  Dull  Knife,  the 
Cheyenne  chief,  broke  out  of  Camp  Robinson,  and  his  braves  and 
squaws  fought  until  nearly  all  were  killed,  it  was  because  they 
would  rather  die  than  be  sent  to  the  Indian  Territory,  where  they 
had  neither  friends  nor  country.  And  yet  this  man,  in  1866,  re 
fused  to  take  the  war  path  with  Red  Cloud,  and  suffered  much  to 
prove  that  he  was  the  white  man's  friend. 

The  occupation  of  the  Powder  river  country,  and  the  valleys  of 
the  Big  Horn  and  Yellowstone,  during  that  year,  in  the  face  of 
Harney's  treaty  of  1865,  opened  up  that  series  of  disasters  which 
has  sacrificed  so  many  white  men,  and  exacted  so  much  of  ven 
geance  upon  the  red  man  himself.  It  was  time  that  he  was  dealt 
with  as  other  men  are  dealt  with.  Legislation  and  adjudication 
have  changed  the  old  theory  of  our  Supreme  Court,  which  held 
that  the  Indians  were  internal  nations,  dependent  indeed,  but  ca 
pable  of  contracting  by  treaty.  We  must  treat  them  as  men, 
under  law,  and  punish  the  red  and  white  men  alike  and  protect 
them  alike.  Then  there  will  be  found  in  America  an  asylum  even 
for  those  whose  fathers  were  here  when  our  fathers  sought  an  asy- 
lum,  and  we  shall  crown  our  work  of  the  emancipation  of  the  Afri 
can,  by  the  preservation  of  the  Indian. 

I  was  asked  jresterday  to  explain  why  the  Indians  used  arrows 
so  freely  upon  the  bodies  of  their  victims.  It  is  a  part  of  their 
superstition.  While  they  will  not  often  use,  again,  an  arrow  shot 
at  an  enemy,  if  it  miss  him,  because  the  Great  Spirit  did  not  wish 
it  to  hit,  they  count  to  their  credit  every  act  of  courage.  Thus, 
when  in  single  combat,  the  red  man  would  fail  to  get  a  scalp, 
unless  aided,  the  friend  who  has  helped  him  shoots  arrows  into 
the  body  and  keeps  the  record,  to  show  that  while  he  did  not  get 
the  scalp  he  was  the  cause  of  its  being  secured.  This  very  chief, 
Dull  Knife,  when  in  1866,  he  refused  to  join  Red  Cloud,  at  the  first 
outbreak  of  war,  was  slashed  across  the  shoulders  with  bows,  in 
contempt,  with  the  cry  of  "Coo  !"  (coward)  and  these  "Coos"  are 
recorded  by  knots  tied  in  their  ponies'  manes,  as  the  next  thing  to 


BY   HENRY   B.    CARRINGTON.  7 

victory.  So  the  arrows  used  upon  a  body  under  a  state  of  facts 
such  as  given  are  so  many  "Coos"  to  the  credit  of  a  warrior.  The 
hundreds  of  arrows  found  in  the  bodies  after  the  Fetterman  massa 
cre,  showed  that  the  whole  force  of  the  red  man  was  employed  to 
silence  the  brave  men  who  fought  with  desperation  against  an  over 
whelming  body.  It  is  enough  for  us  to  know  that  white  men  first 
stole  their  lands,  and  then  sold  them  arms,  and  did  by  every  low 
passion  werk  out  the  scheme  by  which  we  should  treat  the  Indian 
as  a  brute  to  be  exterminated,  rather  than  as  a  man  to  be  saved. 
In  the  horrors  of  that  calamity  when  loved  companions  fell  so  sud 
denly  after  safely  passing  the  ordeal  of  four  years  of  war,  and  it 
seemed  as  if  there  was  no  salvation  for  the  rest  of  the  small  force 
in  Dacotah,  and  when  our  wives  and  our  children  were  in  peril,  so 
that  no  one  knew  what  the  next  hour  would  bring  of  toil  or  trial,  I 
could  not  but  feel  that,  if  I  had  been  a  red  man-,  I  would  have 
fought  as  bitterly,  if  not  as  cruelly,  for  my  rights  and  my  home,  as 
the  red  man  fought. 

Be  it  our  part  to  strengthen  the  hands  of  those  who  would  save 
the  red  man,  so  that  the  eternal  disgrace  of  his  extinction  shall 
not  attach  to  America  while  Christianity  is  its  strength  and  its 
glory. 


[SALEM  PRESS,  July,  1§81.] 


